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United States

03 January 2021 – United States

3 January 2021
A Protestor Holding up a Sign During a Protest Against US and Mexican Migration Policies at the San Ysidrio Crossing Port, (AFP, Getty Images,
A Protestor Holding up a Sign During a Protest Against US and Mexican Migration Policies at the San Ysidrio Crossing Port, (AFP, Getty Images, "US Finalizes Rule Allowing Asylum Seekers to be Branded 'Danger' To National Security Amid Pandemic," Forbes, 23 December 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/chantaldasilva/2020/12/23/us-finalizes-rule-allowing-asylum-seekers-to-be-branded-danger-to-national-security-amid-pandemic/?sh=3fc9ae4f1bfc)

As of mid-December 2020, more than 7,800 ICE detainees had tested positive for COVID-19 and eight deaths related to the virus recorded. According to the San Antonio Express News, in detention centres under the jurisdiction of the San Antonio field office alone, there have been more than 1,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases.

In a commentary published in December by the American Journal of Public Health, “Preventing the Spread of COVID-19 in Immigration Detention Centres Requires the Release of Detainees,” a group of public health experts in the United States argue that “safely releasing detainees from immigration detention centres into their communities is the most effective way to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in these settings. Failure to do so will result in infection and death from a novel communicable disease and deepen inequities for a population group that already experiences many structural and systemic threats to health and well-being.”

A separate report published by the advocacy group Detention Watch Network argued that counties with ICE detention centres were more likely to report COVID-19 cases earlier in the pandemic and more likely to have a serious outbreak. The group contends that the US detention system’s ineffective efforts to control the virus helped lead to an additional 245,000 cases across the United States by 1 August 2020. In one case from May 2020, officials in Pearsall said that every local case of COVID-19 could be traced back to ICE’s South Texas processing centre, operated by GEO Group, and that the company had failed to properly keep the community informed of developing cases.

Writing in a December issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, Palacios and Travassos report that infection rates within US immigration detention centres is a direct result of the nonadherence to the guidelines set by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention as well as the failure to provide for adequate social distancing in the centres. Yet, rather than allocating vaccines to high-risk groups, federal officials from Operation Warp Speed, a public-private partnership aimed at accelerating the production and distribution of vaccines, have decided to distribute vaccines on the basis of population at the state level. The authors’ review of state plans found that only one state – Louisiana – includes immigration detention centres in its vaccination priority plan and that “at least 14 states lack plans to prioritise any incarcerated populations for SARS-CoV-2 immunisation.”

On 23 December 2020, Forbes reported that the Trump administration finalised a regulation allowing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to block asylum requests on the basis that asylum seekers could constitute a “danger to the security of the United States” if they have passed through a country affected by COVID-19. The regulation, advanced by DHS and the Department of Justice in July 2020, precludes granting asylum to asylum seekers based on “emergency public health concerns generated by a communicable disease.” Forbes reported that the rule gives DHS the ability to exercise “prosecutorial discretion” in cases where asylum seekers are subject to withholding of removal measures, which is aimed at preventing the deportation of vulnerable people to a country where their freedom or their life may be at risk. The rule will enter into force two days after President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on 20 January 2021. Health experts have condemned the measure as “xenophobia masquerading as a public health measure” and said that it would “undermine public health and further endanger people seeking protection.”

Another hidden impact of the U.S. immigration detention policies during the pandemic has been on source countries. As previously reported on this platform (see 20 April Guatemala update; 22 April United States update; and 19 June United States update on this platform), the continuation of deportation flights from the United States during the pandemic has helped spread the virus in countries of origin, particularly across Central America.